ms-sys man page on Knoppix

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MS-SYS(1)							     MS-SYS(1)

NAME
       ms-sys - write Microsoft boot block

SYNOPSIS
       ms-sys [options] [device]

DESCRIPTION
       ms-sys is for writing Microsoft compatible boot records.

OPTIONS
       A summary of options is included below.

       -1, --fat12
	      Write a FAT12 floppy boot record to device.

       -2, --fat32nt
	      Write a FAT32 partition NT boot record to device.

       -3, --fat32
	      Write a FAT32 partition DOS (Win9x) boot record to device.

       -6, --fat16
	      Write a FAT16 partition DOS (Win9x) boot record to device.

       -l, --wipelabel
	      Reset partition disk label in boot record.

       -p, --partition
	      Write  partition	info  (hidden  sectors	and  drive id) to boot
	      record. This might be needed on  some  partitions	 depending  on
	      which program was used to create the file system.

       -m, --mbr
	      Write a Windows 2000/XP/2003 master boot record to device.  Does
	      not change Windows Disk Signature (bytes 01b8-01bd).   This  MBR
	      will boot certain partition types beyond cylinder 1024 using LBA
	      addressing.

       -9, --mbr95b
	      Write a Windows 95B/98/98SE/ME master  boot  record  to  device.
	      Does not change Windows Disk Signature (bytes 01b8-01bd) or boot
	      drive and time (bytes 00da-00df).	 This MBR  will	 boot  FAT-LBA
	      partition	 types	0c  and	 0e  beyond  cylinder  1024  using LBA
	      addressing.

       -d, --mbrdos
	      Write a DOS/Windows NT master boot record to device.   Does  not
	      change  Windows Disk Signature (bytes 01b8-01bd).	 This MBR will
	      not boot beyond  cylinder	 1024  as  it  does  not  support  LBA
	      addressing.

       -s, --mbrsyslinux
	      Write  a	public	domain	syslinux master boot record to device.
	      Does not change Windows Disk Signature (bytes 01b8-01bd).	  This
	      MBR will boot any partition types beyond cylinder 1024 using LBA
	      addressing.

       -z, --mbrzero
	      Write an empty (zeroed,  non-bootable)  master  boot  record  to
	      device.  Zeroes all bytes except the partition map and signature
	      (bytes 01be-01ff).  Similar to the  empty	 DOS  partition	 table
	      that fdisk creates.

       -f, --force
	      Force writing of boot record.

       -h, --help
	      Show summary of options.

       -v, --version
	      Show program version.

       -w, --write
	      Write automatically selected boot record to device.

       If  ms-sys  is  started	without any options a simple diagnosis will be
       done on the given device.

EXAMPLES
       Please note that	 Windows  ME  is  not  useful  for  making  standalone
       bootable floppies. However, Win9x and DOS works fine with the first two
       examples.

       Creating a 1.68 MB bootable floppy

       This example assumes that you have your windows installation mounted at
       /dosc and also have mtools and fdformat installed.

       fdformat /dev/fd0u1680
       mformat a:
       ms-sys -w /dev/fd0
       mcopy /dosc/io.sys a:
       mcopy /dosc/msdos.sys a:
       mcopy /dosc/command.com a:

       Creating	 a  bootable  2.8  MB  floppy  image  to use with an el-torito
       bootable CD

       dd if=/dev/zero of=floppy288.img bs=1024 count=2880
       /sbin/mkdosfs floppy288.img
       ms-sys -1 -f floppy288.img
       su
       mount -o loop floppy288.img /mnt
       cp msdos.sys /mnt/
       cp io.sys /mnt/
       cp command.com /mnt/
       (it might also be a good idea to add a config.sys and autoexec.bat with
       CDROM support)
       umount /mnt
       exit
       cp floppy288.img cd-files/boot.img
       mkisofs -b boot.img -c boot.cat -o cdimage.iso cd-files
       (burn the file cdimage.iso to a CD with cdrecord or another program)

       restoring a backup of Win9x or Win ME to a fresh hard disk

       Step 1, use GNU parted to create your FAT32 partition and file system:

       parted (then create partition and file system)

       Step 2, write the MBR:

       ms-sys -w /dev/hda

       Step 3, write the FAT32 partition boot record:

       ms-sys -w /dev/hda1

       Step 4, mount your new filesystem:

       mount /dev/hda1 /mnt

       Step 5, read your backup

       cd /mnt; tar -xzvf /path/to/my_windows_backup_file.tgz

ENVIRONMENT
       The  variables  LANG  and LC_ALL have  the usual meaning, however there
       are not many translations available.

BUGS
       There have been reports about unbootable FAT32 partitions created  with
       "mformat -F c:". One workaround is to use gnu parted to create the par‐
       tition instead. Since version 1.1.3 ms-sys has the switch -p  which  is
       supposed	 to  fix  this	problem. The problem has also been reported on
       partitions formatted with mkdosfs and mkfs.vfat.

AUTHOR
       This manual page was originally written	by  Gürkan  Sengün  and	 since
       edited  by  Henrik  Carlqvist.  The program ms-sys is mostly written by
       Henrik Carlqvist, the file CONTRIBUTORS in the source archive  contains
       a complete list of contributors.

SEE ALSO
       mformat(1)  fdformat(8)	mkdosfs(8)  mkisofs(8)

			       February 16, 2004		     MS-SYS(1)
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